> >SJ>In this classic version of Pascal's wager between an atheist and a
> Christian,
> >>I can't lose anything, but I can gain everything. Chris OTOH cannot gain
> >>anything, but he can lose everything.
>
>SC>and if he is right and you are wrong and he believes (as you do) that
> >he'd better pretend to be a Christian in order to hedge his bets,
> >then he will have lived his life as a lie. We are back to that.
>
>Stephen: No. Pretending to be a Christian just as bad as being an atheist.
>In fact it is
>probably worse.
No kidding!
> >SJ>Chris must satisfy himself, in his *heart*. The test would be that Chris
> >>would be then relaxed about Christianity, and not getting angry at
> Christians
> >>or their God anymore. We do not get angry at some South Sea
> >>Islanders' god, or its followers, because we believes in our hearts that
> >>there is no real possibility of that god being true.
>
>SC>I believe in my heart that your god has no possibility of being true
> >and for exactly the same reasons you disbelieve the Islander's god.
>
>If that is the case, why bother arguing against my God?
*you* and your God are not the same thing
>Stephen: I have said before that if I reverted back to being an atheist, I
>would not
>see my new role as robbing Christians of what I saw was their comforting
>but irrational illusion. I would then rather *expect* that since if we all
>arose by a mindless `blind watchmaker' mechanism, there would be nothing
>strange or reprehensible about the majority of my fellow humans being
>irrational and believing in God, for example.
>
>Indeed, as an atheist, I would regard it as *really* strange the behaviour of
>those of my fellow atheists who berated Christians for their irrationality. I
>would suspect that those of my fellow atheists who wasted their brief time
>on Earth attacking Christians for their irrationality, did not *really*
>believe
>in their hearts that atheism was true and Christianity was false, and were
>really trying to convince themselves.
although I dislike Christianity as a religion and occasionally state my
opinion to that effect (especially when preached at) I have a policy of
*never* debating atheism/theism. It's a matter of opinion, so who cares?
Evolution is a matter of *fact* and that's different. Anti-evolution is not
identical with Christianity (you should read Dave Oldridge's posts if you
haven't already) and evolution is *not* identical with atheism.
>SC>Oh, and while you are engaged in this fantasy, keep in mind that
> >world-wide there are 1.03 billion Muslims and only 391 million
> >non-Catholic Christians.
>
>Stephen: First, I don't know why I need to keep this in mind?. How many
>Moslems
>there are compared to "non-Catholic Christians" is *irrelevant* to the truth
>or otherwise of Christianity. Except that if Christianity is false, then
>so is
>Islam, because the Koran teaches that Jesus was born of a virgin. But the
>reverse is not the case-if Christianity is true then Islam is false. So
>Islam is
>false either way.
you didn't get my point. A lot of Christians are stupid enough to believe
that if you have government imposing religion it will be YOUR religion--not
only that but your particular version of your religion--that it imposes.
You're tickled to death to have a Christian chaplain in your publicly
funded school, but would you be equally pleased if the chaplain were Wiccan
or Muslim?
>Stephen: Second, why does Susan exclude "Catholic Christians"?
Because most protestants do, and you are protestant. I assumed you would
also not be pleased with a Catholic priest as a school chaplain.
>Stephen: If the claim is that
>most "Catholic Christians" are only nominal Christians (and I do not make
>that claim) then one would have to exclude nominal Muslims.
>
>Third, I would like to know where Susan got her figure of "1.03 billion
>Muslims" from. According to the EB there are between 600-700 million
>Muslims worldwide:
The 1.03 billion number is from my files at work and I'm at home for the
week (and I have a strong feeling the "billion" is either my typo or
theirs). I have no idea how they are counted, but my guess is that the EB
is out of date as is encyclopedia.com which came up with a similar number.
This site probably has more recent data:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/worldrel.htm and puts Muslims at 1,215
million.
this is some interesting stuff from the notes below the table:
"U.S. Center for World Mission estimated in 1997 that the percentage of
humans who regard themselves as Christians rose from 33.7% in 1970 to 33.9%
in 1996. 2 Its total number of adherents is growing at about 2.3% annually.
This is approximately equal to the growth rate of the world's population.
Islam is growing faster: about 2.9% and is thus increasing its market share.
Author Samuel Huntington disagrees: "The percentage of Christians in the
world peaked at about 30% in the 1980s, leveled off, is now declining, and
will probably approximate to about 25% of the world's population by 2025.
As a result of their extremely high rates of population growth, the
proportion of Muslims in the world will continue to increase dramatically,
amounting to 20 percent of the world's population about the turn of the
century, surpassing the number of Christians some years later, and probably
accounting for about 30 percent of the world's population by 2025."
>BW>No one gets annoyed at Unitarians because they mind their own
> >>business.
>
>Stephen: Maybe they don't really believe what they claim to believe, and/or
>have nothing *worth* believing?
>
>SC>It's not so much that we mind our own business, but that we consider
> >proselytizing to be in bad taste. :-)
>
>Stephen: So it is good taste for Susan (and Chris) to attack Christianity
>on this List
>but it is "bad taste" for Christians like me to defend Christianity on same?
I dislike Christianity and say so, but I *attack* bad science and bad
ideas. Proselytizing is not "defending" it's peddling religion on street
corners like it was peanuts.
Susan
--------
Always ask. Hang out with people who make you laugh. Love as many people as
you can. Read everything you can get your hands on. Take frequent naps.
Watch as little television as you can stand. Tell people what you want. Do
what you love as much as you can. Dance every day.
--------
Please visit my website:
http://www.telepath.com/susanb
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